Wade and Gaddafi call for joint army
[Daily Nation (Kenya)] Libyan leader Moamer Qadaffy pushed again Tuesday his dream for a sole African government and was backed by Senegal's President Abdoulaye Wade as he urged the creation of a single African army.
Dressed in flowing gold robes, Libya's maverick leader told a ceremony at a festival in Senegal celebrating black identity and culture that Africa was "experiencing a new submissiveness".
He described the continent as "prey that all the world's wolves want to devour" by monopolising its mineral resources or fisheries.
"Down with imperialism! Africa must unite, so that we do not again become serfs or slaves," he said.
"It is necessary to establish a unity government for the African continent and that Africa has one army ... which could consist of a million soldiers," he said.
"Even the South African army is worthless to Nato or the United States of America. Even Libya is not even able to protect its territorial waters alone."
Africa's longest-standing Arab leader having been in power for 41 years, Qadaffy appeared to improvise his speech, which was made in Arabic and translated simultaneously into French.
He said African leaders who "do not want to put in place a single African army" were "agents of imperialism, myopic, or traitors who do not think about the future of Africa."
"It is not enough to dwell on the past of the continent, we were treated like animals, we were hunted in the forest, they enslaved us ... they appropriated Africa. But why fight for liberation, if we remain satellites of our colonial powers?"
Posted by: Fred 2010-12-16 |